Instructionally Dense Literacy Practice in the Middle Grades: A Qualitative Study

This qualitative, practitioner inquiry examined how a group of novice and experienced middle-grade reading teachers integrated facets of instructional density (Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, & Mistretta-Hampston, 1997) into their practice. Instructional density is a descriptor of effective teaching whereby practitioners layer their instruction in individual lessons with other elements of the curriculum. This occurs in the planning of instruction as well as during dialogic exchanges with students that are the natural outcrop of instruction. The researcher’s role was to conduct a series of observations and post-observation reflections and provide coaching that helped participants generate understanding of instructional density and how it could be enacted. Through detailed vignettes, this study provides insights into (a) how instructional density is realized in the context of classroom teaching, (b) how differences in content knowledge inform the process of using instructional density, and (c) how practitioners negotiate meaning of instructional density through collaboration. The design of the study regarded professional collaboration as fundamental to improving practice. The descriptions herein are useful in considering how teachers learn to use their curriculum in new ways, ones that are more cohesive and efficient, and that acknowledge its interconnectedness. Advisor: Stephanie Wessel

Instructionally Dense Literacy Practice in the Middle Grades: A Qualitative Study

This qualitative, practitioner inquiry examined how a group of novice and experienced middle-grade reading teachers integrated facets of instructional density (Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, & Mistretta-Hampston, 1997) into their practice. Instructional density is a descriptor of effective teaching whereby practitioners layer their instruction in individual lessons with other elements of the curriculum. This occurs in the planning of instruction as well as during dialogic exchanges with students that are the natural outcrop of instruction. The researcher’s role was to conduct a series of observations and post-observation reflections and provide coaching that helped participants generate understanding of instructional density and how it could be enacted. Through detailed vignettes, this study provides insights into (a) how instructional density is realized in the context of classroom teaching, (b) how differences in content knowledge inform the process of using instructional density, and (c) how practitioners negotiate meaning of instructional density through collaboration. The design of the study regarded professional collaboration as fundamental to improving practice. The descriptions herein are useful in considering how teachers learn to use their curriculum in new ways, ones that are more cohesive and efficient, and that acknowledge its interconnectedness. Advisor: Stephanie Wessel

Association studies of up to 1.2 million individuals yield new insights into the genetic etiology of tobacco and alcohol use

Tobacco and alcohol use are leading causes of mortality that influence risk for many complex diseases and disorders 1 . They are heritable 2,3 and etiologically related 4,5 behaviors that have been resistant to gene discovery efforts 6–11 . In sample sizes up to 1.2 million individuals, we discovered 566 genetic variants in 406 loci associated with multiple stages of tobacco use (initiation, cessation, and heaviness) as well as alcohol use, with 150 loci evidencing pleiotropic association. Smoking phenotypes were positively genetically correlated with many health conditions, whereas alcohol use was negatively correlated with these conditions, such that increased genetic risk for alcohol use is associated with lower disease risk. We report evidence for the involvement of many systems in tobacco and alcohol use, including genes involved in nicotinic, dopaminergic, and glutamatergic neurotransmission. The results provide a solid starting point to evaluate the effects of these loci in model organisms and more precise substance use measures

Genetic diversity fuels gene discovery for tobacco and alcohol use

Tobacco and alcohol use are heritable behaviours associated with 15% and 5.3% of worldwide deaths, respectively, due largely to broad increased risk for disease and injury(1-4). These substances are used across the globe, yet genome-wide association studies have focused largely on individuals of European ancestries(5). Here we leveraged global genetic diversity across 3.4 million individuals from four major clines of global ancestry (approximately 21% non-European) to power the discovery and fine-mapping of genomic loci associated with tobacco and alcohol use, to inform function of these loci via ancestry-aware transcriptome-wide association studies, and to evaluate the genetic architecture and predictive power of polygenic risk within and across populations. We found that increases in sample size and genetic diversity improved locus identification and fine-mapping resolution, and that a large majority of the 3,823 associated variants (from 2,143 loci) showed consistent effect sizes across ancestry dimensions. However, polygenic risk scores developed in one ancestry performed poorly in others, highlighting the continued need to increase sample sizes of diverse ancestries to realize any potential benefit of polygenic prediction.Peer reviewe

Instructionally dense literacy practice in the middle grades: A qualitative study

This qualitative, practitioner inquiry examined how a group of novice and experienced middle-grade reading teachers integrated facets of instructional density (Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, & Mistretta-Hampston, 1997) into their practice. Instructional density is a descriptor of effective teaching whereby practitioners layer their instruction in individual lessons with other elements of the curriculum. This occurs in the planning of instruction as well as during dialogic exchanges with students that are the natural outcrop of instruction. The researcher’s role was to conduct a series of observations and post-observation reflections and provide coaching that helped participants generate understanding of instructional density and how it could be enacted. Through detailed vignettes, this study provides insights into (a) how instructional density is realized in the context of classroom teaching, (b) how differences in content knowledge inform the process of using instructional density, and (c) how practitioners negotiate meaning of instructional density through collaboration. The design of the study regarded professional collaboration as fundamental to improving practice. The descriptions herein are useful in considering how teachers learn to use their curriculum in new ways, ones that are more cohesive and efficient, and that acknowledge its interconnectedness

Genetic diversity fuels gene discovery for tobacco and alcohol use

Tobacco and alcohol use are heritable behaviours associated with 15% and 5.3% of worldwide deaths, respectively, due largely to broad increased risk for disease and injury1-4. These substances are used across the globe, yet genome-wide association studies have focused largely on individuals of European ancestries5. Here we leveraged global genetic diversity across 3.4 million individuals from four major clines of global ancestry (approximately 21% non-European) to power the discovery and fine-mapping of genomic loci associated with tobacco and alcohol use, to inform function of these loci via ancestry-aware transcriptome-wide association studies, and to evaluate the genetic architecture and predictive power of polygenic risk within and across populations. We found that increases in sample size and genetic diversity improved locus identification and fine-mapping resolution, and that a large majority of the 3,823 associated variants (from 2,143 loci) showed consistent effect sizes across ancestry dimensions. However, polygenic risk scores developed in one ancestry performed poorly in others, highlighting the continued need to increase sample sizes of diverse ancestries to realize any potential benefit of polygenic prediction

Data Related to Association studies of up to 1.2 million individuals yield new insights into the genetic etiology of tobacco and alcohol use

Files include summary statistics for associations with each phenotype: Drinks per week, Cigarettes per day, Smoking initiation, Smoking cessation, and Age of initiation. Details for each file can be found in the readme file or in the article's Supplementary Text.We conducted a meta-analysis of over 30 genome wide association studies (GWAS) in over 1.2 million participants with European ancestry on nicotine and substance use. Specifically, we targeted different stages and kinds of substance use from initiation (smoking initiation and age of regular smoking initiation) to regular use (drinks per week and cigarettes per day) to cessation (smoking cessation). The GWAS included have all been imputed to Haplotype Reference Consortium, 1000 Genomes or a combination including more specific reference panels. The studies are then meta-analyzed using sample size, allele frequencies and the imputation quality score as weight. Here we present the final set of filtered meta-analysis summary statistics as presented in the paper (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-018-0307-5) excluding 23andMe. As per requirement and to ease dissemination of our results for other scientific endeavors, we are sharing our results here to facilitate downloading.R01DA037904R01HG008983R21DA04017